More than a thousand people gathered at Powder House Square near the Tufts University campus Wednesday evening to protest the arrest and possible deportation of graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk.
Ozturk was arrested Tuesday and is now being held in a U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement detention facility in Louisiana. A federal judge had ordered federal officials not to move Ozturk from Massachusetts without notification, but it’s unclear whether she was moved before the order was issued.
Ozturk is a Turkish national and had a valid F-1 visa to study in the U.S., according to her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai.
A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said a federal investigation found Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization,” but did not provide any evidence to support that claim.
Protesters in Powder House Square hold signs in support Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested by immigration officials despite having a valid student visa. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Ozturk’s name appeared on the byline of an opinion piece critical of the school’s response to students demanding an end to the university’s relationship with companies tied to Israel. It’s not clear whether that op-ed played a role in the decision to arrest her.
“They’re literally black bagging people on our streets in our city, and it’s unacceptable,” said Boston University history student Alastair Holman, who attended the rally at Tufts.
“We’re creating a society of fear, this is completely — it’s illegal,” he said. “These people can’t come into our communities and just arbitrarily arrest people who were here legally, on visas. Like, it’s insanity. I don’t even know how to put it into words.”
Amitra Dani, a public school teacher in Boston, said the Trump administration was making good on its threats to make an example of pro-Palestinian protesters.
“[Trump] said it during his campaign, and he’s made it a key part of his platform to attack immigrants and attack immigrant students,” she said. “As a teacher, I’ve seen the way those attacks and those threats really create a climate of fear, even with my students.”
Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim Justice League, said people should not be surprised by Ozturk’s arrest.
“I think it’s really important for people who are surprised by this to know that people are being disappeared every day, like on their way to work, dropping off their kids, trying to go to work and so on,” she said. “It’s been going on for quite some time, too. It’s obviously escalated in this moment, but it has been going on for quite some time.”
She said that immigration law as written allows for too many “loopholes” that allow officials to deport people based on accusations.
“We’ve seen with Mahmoud Khalil’s case, in immigration law, Marco Rubio gets to say that this person is somehow a threat to our foreign policy, our national security, and revoke somebody’s status,” she said. “These things have been built in so that government can use it against people in the way that we’re seeing really escalated right now.”